Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR)

Profile

A “non-profit legal and educational organization committed to the creative use of law as a positive force for social change.” Claims to use “litigation proactively to advance the law in a positive direction…to guarantee the rights of those with the fewest protections and least access to legal resources, to train the next generation of constitutional and human rights attorneys, and to strengthen the broader movement for constitutional and human rights.”

Funding

In FY 2016-2017, total income was $22.7 million; total expenses were $10.6 million.

According to its FY 2015 990 form, CCR received contributions from the Fidelity Charitable Gift Fund, the Bertha Foundation, the Kaphan Foundation, the Libra Foundation, and the Tides Foundation. (See table below for further funding information.)

Activities

Active in lawfare suits against Israel and Israeli officials (including Avi Dichter and Moshe Ya’alon); promotes anti-Israel BDS campaigns; urges the U.S. government to stop providing military aid to Israel; presents an entirely biased and distorted view of the conflict and utilizes highly politicized rhetoric, accusing Israel of “war crimes,” “crimes against humanity,” and other such allegations.

Accuses the U.S of “unqualified U.S. diplomatic, economic, and military support for the Israeli government’s occupation of Palestine and apartheid policies in the region.”

In April-May, 2018, CCR led a “Justice Delegation” to Israel and the West Bank claiming to provide a “better understand[ing of] the human rights situation in Israel and Palestine.” However, the trip met with Israeli and Palestinian organizations that promote a one-sided Palestinian narrative of the conflict, BDS, lawfare, and antisemitism, and some with alleged ties to terrorism.

On May 14, 2018, the Justice Delegation released a statement accusing Israel of “settler colonialism and ethnic cleansing on Palestinian communities through blatantly obtrusive policies” as well as “structural racism and apartheid.”

On June 1, 2018, CCR held an event titled “Palestine Is Everywhere,” where members of the delegation shared their experiences from the trip. The event featured Tamika Mallory, the co-leader of the Women’s March, who when discussing the formation of Israel in 1948 stated, “you don’t show up to somebody’s home, needing a place to stay, and decide that you’re going to throw them out and hurt the people who are on that land. And to kill, steal, and do whatever it is you’re gonna do to take that land! That to me is unfair.It’s a human rights crime” (emphasis added).

The event also featured Linda Sarsour, the Executive Director of the Arab American Association and co-chair of the 2017 Women’s March, who stated that “This is apartheid happening in Palestine, funded by our taxpayers’ money.”

In February 2018, CCR participated in a panel at Yale University titled “Ferguson to Palestine: Lawyering for Liberation” discussing the “parallels of occupation… the IDF response to movements for Palestinian liberation, the for-profit prison detention of people of color, and systemic apartheid.” The panel also featured Hassan Jabareen, the founder and executive director of Adalah.

In August 2016, published an article, “The Genocide of the Palestinian People: An International Law and Human Rights Perspective,” claiming that “Israel’s prolonged belligerent occupation of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and Gaza for 50 years far exceeds the kind of occupation that animated the creation of legal rules of occupation contained in international law. Given the seemingly permanent nature of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, some human rights experts, including Israeli historian Ilan Pappé, have warned of an ‘incremental genocide’ of Palestinians and the ultimate destruction of Palestinians as a national group.”

In a January 2015 interview, President Emeritus Michael Ratner alleged: “Israel’s war crimes are so extreme and so open and notorious, both the assaults on Gaza as well as the movement of civilians into occupied territories, that I think there’s a chance that, if they have any legitimacy, the International Criminal Court will have to go forward on opening an investigation on at least some part of those crimes. So I’m not without hope.” In a 2010 blog posting entitled, “From Hebron to Yad Vashem: Jewish Sorrow Justifying the Sorrow of Others,” he condemned Yad Vashem for “trying to make me accept, or at least justify, what was unacceptable: the apartheid state that is today’s Israel. In this narrative, the Holocaust is used to ask us to wash away the sins of the occupier.”

In a July 2014 interview, Ratner stated that “today I want to talk about Israel, but particularly its criminality–its war crimes, genocide, crimes against humanity, and apartheid,” and called Israel’s massacres of Palestinians “incremental genocide.”

In 2014, Ratner signed a petition titled “Jews Say: End the War on Gaza — No Aid to Apartheid Israel! BDS!” legitimizing Palestinian resistance stating, “Like any colonial regime, Israel uses resistance to such policies as an excuse to terrorize and collectively punish the indigenous population for its very existence. But scattered rockets, fired from Gaza into land stolen from Palestinians in the first place, are merely a response to this systemic injustice.”

Issued a 2014 call for action, urging supporters to “call the White House and send a letter to your representatives to protest the U.S. government’s continued support for Israel during an onslaught that has already killed hundreds of civilians.” The sample letter states: “I am calling to protest US support of the Israeli government, as evidence mounts of war crimes by the Israeli military in the Gaza Strip…The President must condemn the ongoing atrocities by the Israeli military, and the United States government must end all military, economic, and diplomatic support for Israel.”

In October 2015, CCR, alongside Palestine Legal, the South Florida Chapter of the National Lawyers Guild, and CAIR Florida, sent a letter to Florida State Senators urging them to withdraw a bill that “seeks to stifle this human rights movement by blacklisting companies that decide for ethical reasons to boycott Israel because of its human rights abuses.”

In January 2015, CCR announced that it filed a civil rights suit against the University of Illinois for firing tenured professor Steven Salaita after he posted a series of viciously anti-Israel tweets during the 2014 Gaza War. Salaita’s tweets included: “If you’re defending #Israel right now you’re an awful human being”; “Zionists: transforming ‘antisemitism’ from something horrible into something honorable since 1948”; “At this point, if Netanyahu appeared on TV with a necklace made from the teeth of Palestinian children, would anybody be surprised?” CCR attorney Maria LaHood claimed that “The use of ‘civility’ as cover for violating Professor Salaita’s rights must be challenged… There is neither a ‘civility’ exception nor a ‘Palestine’ exception to the First Amendment.” According to the press release, “The lawsuit seeks Salaita’s reinstatement and monetary relief that includes compensation for the economic hardship and reputational damage he suffered as a result of the University’s actions.”

In August 2014, CCR, together with the National Lawyers Guild (NLG) and others, sent a letter to Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court Faatou Bensouda, urging her “to initiate an investigation of war crimes, genocide, and crimes against humanity committed by Israeli leaders and aided and abetted by U.S. officials in Gaza.” The letter claims, “By transferring financial assistance, weapons and other military aid to Israel, members of U.S. Congress, President Barak Obama, and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel have aided and abetted the commission of war crimes, genocide, and crimes against humanity by Israeli officials and commanders in Gaza.”

BDS Activities

According to CCR, “Legal bullying will sometimes serve its purpose of intimidating people of conscience into silence, but it ultimately cannot stop the growing BDS movement in support of Palestinian rights. The use of peaceful boycotts in movements for social justice has a rich tradition, including in the United States Civil Rights Movement and in the movement against South African apartheid. Threats to sue people engaging in BDS just confirm how powerful this movement has become.”

On March 11, 2018, a Washington State court dismissed the case. In response to the dismissal, CCR Rights Deputy Legal Director Maria LaHood stated that it is a “victory for everyone who supports the right to boycott.”

In June 2016, Governor Cuomo signed an executive order that barred state business with organizations that have endorsed Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel. In response, Baher Azmy, CCR’s legal director, stated, “Cuomo’s action has the ugliest attributes of McCarthyism…identifying organizations that engage in speech we dislike and, ‘Let’s blacklist them.’ This is a well-orchestrated, well-funded, organized strategy to disproportionately punish US-based activists. Really ugly.”

In May 2016, CCR joined a coalition of over 100 groups to send a letter to members of the New York Legislature, “urging lawmakers to oppose bills that would effectively create blacklists of individuals and entities that boycott companies based in Israel or the occupied Palestinian territory.”

In May 2015, together with Palestine Legal, published a document, “Accusations of Anti-Semitism Used to Deter Advocacy for Palestinian Rights.” The report advances the argument used by many anti-Israel activists and antisemites who claim that “conflation of Israeli policies with anti-Semitism [is used] as a tool to silence activism in support of Palestinian rights,” even when their activities are in fact manifestations of anti-Jewish hatred. Furthermore, many of the BDS campaigns promoted by Palestine Legal are rooted in immoral double standards and tactics of demonization and delegitimization, all of which are expressions of modern-day antisemitism.

Together with the Palestine Legal, published a September 2013 “Legal and Tactical Guide,” advising students how to avoid potential lawsuits and effectively organize BDS campaigns, mock checkpoints, protests, demonstrations, and other anti-Israel activities.